The pain hit before the sound.
A sharp pulse tore through my chest, stealing the air from my lungs as I doubled over. The pearl flared violently, slipping from my grasp and clattering against the stone floor. Light spilled from it in fractured bursts, reflecting wildly off the walls.
I knew this feeling.
Not pain.
Connection.
Someone else had touched the rain.
I pressed my marked palm against the floor, gasping. The silver veins in the stone surged in response, crawling toward me like living threads. The tower's hum deepened, resonating through my bones.
"What did I just feel?" I demanded.
The man was already moving, scanning the chamber, his posture tense. "An echo."
"Of what?"
"Of you."
My stomach dropped. "That's not funny."
"This isn't humor," he said sharply. "That was resonance. Rare. Dangerous."
The pearl rolled to a stop near my knee, its glow dimmer than ever. When I picked it up, a rush of sensation flooded through me—rain striking pavement, a flickering streetlamp, a woman's startled breath.
Not memory.
Current.
I yanked my hand back as if burned. "There's someone else."
He didn't deny it.
Instead, he crouched in front of me, his voice low. "Describe what you saw."
"A street. Night. Rain that wasn't supposed to exist." My throat tightened. "She was frightened."
"That tracks."
"That's all you have to say?" I snapped. "You act like this was inevitable."
"Because it was," he replied evenly. "The moment the door touched you, the possibility spread."
"Spread to people?"
"To points of similarity," he corrected. "To those close enough in pattern."
I shook my head. "You're not making sense."
"Not yet," he agreed.
The mark on my palm pulsed again—slower now, steadier. With it came a tug, gentle but persistent, like a thread being drawn tight.
She's still there.
I could feel it.
"Can she feel me?" I asked quietly.
His pause was answer enough.
"Yes," he said. "And that's the problem."
The tower responded before I could speak. A corridor ahead of us brightened, mirrors sliding aside to reveal a new passage—narrower than the others, its walls dark and wet-looking, as if perpetually soaked by unseen rain.
At its entrance hovered a symbol identical to the mark on my hand.
My heart pounded. "That wasn't there before."
"No," he said. "The tower just recalculated."
"For what?"
"For convergence."
The word settled heavily between us.
"I don't want to drag her into this," I said. "She didn't choose it."
"Neither did you."
"That's not comforting."
"It's reality."
I looked down at the pearl. Its surface had changed—tiny fractures webbed through its glow, not breaking it, but altering the way the light moved inside. It felt… thinner.
"How many?" I asked.
His eyes flicked to the corridor, then back to me. "You're asking the wrong question."
"Then what's the right one?"
He hesitated, then said quietly, "How long before it starts choosing through you?"
Cold crept up my spine.
The rain sound returned faintly—not echoing through the tower this time, but inside my head. With it came a whisper of unfamiliar fear, sharp and human.
She's running.
I gasped. "She's in danger."
"Yes," he said. "Because the connection works both ways."
The corridor pulsed gently, inviting—no, insisting.
"If I walk down that path," I said slowly, "what happens?"
"You move closer to her," he replied. "And farther from who you were."
"And if I don't?"
The tower answered for him.
Somewhere deep within its structure, a door knocked.
Once.
My grip tightened around the pearl. "You're saying the tower wants us to meet."
"I'm saying," he corrected softly, "that something else does."
The rain grew louder.
And for the first time, I felt the connection pull hard—not gently, not patiently.
Urgent.
Hungry.
I took a step toward the corridor.
Then another.
Behind me, the man spoke, his voice barely audible.
"Whatever happens next," he said, "remember this wasn't a rescue."
The symbol above the passage flared bright silver.
The tower shifted.
And somewhere in the real world, a woman with rain on her coat paused suddenly—hand pressed to her chest—as if she had felt someone take a step closer.